EA SPORTS announce that 500 million online games have been played since launching its ‘09 product line last June. On average, more than 2.2 million EA SPORTS games are played online each day, which reflects an increase of more than 175 percent over last year.“The massive migration to online gaming has transformed the video game landscape, and this week’s 500 millionth online EA SPORTS game highlights the radical shift that we’ve helped pioneer in the industry,” said Peter Moore, president of EA SPORTS. “Online gameplay allows real-time competitions with fans from around the world who speak the global language of sports. EA SPORTS is committed to providing personal access to the emotion of sports by continuing to create immersive online features, compelling new downloadable content and daily real-time stats updates.”
FIFA 09 Ultimate Team, which launched March 19, has sparked the highest online activity for FIFA 09 in the lifecycle of the product. The unique, downloadable game mode delivers a strategic new online experience to the award-winning FIFA 09 product, winner of 25 international game quality awards. FIFA 09 Ultimate Team challenges gamers to collect or create the most talented soccer players in the world, develop them into a dream team and then compete online.
EA SPORTS also recently launched of 3 on 3 NHL Arcade and NCAA Basketball 09: March Madness Edition as digital downloads. From the makers of NHL 09, winner of 12 Sports Game of the Year awards, 3 on 3 NHL Arcade immediately became the most downloaded game on Xbox LIVE Arcade for two straight weeks.
Six EA SPORTS titles have more than 500,000 registered online users – including Madden NFL 09 and FIFA 09 with more than 2.4 million each – to help drive its record online usage numbers. Users have logged more than 4 billion minutes of EA SPORTS games since last summer, and currently play the equivalent of more than 35 years of games each day.